Of Dwemer and Dragons
by colormenikki
Summary: He is just a freelance adventurer for hire who knows The Reach will swallow anything not tough enough to fight back. There is no point in having attachments, not in this part of Skyrim. But this Breton mage with pretty green eyes and the whole of Nirn resting on her shoulders? Well, she just might stand a chance. And Vorstag knows he wants to be a part of it. (Vorstag/OC)
1. Chapter 1

**Disclaimer: I do not own Skyrim or any characters associated with Bethesda's Elder Scrolls series. All original content is my own.**

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He is going on his fourth consecutive hour of standing straight, back desperate to touch the cool stone of the wall behind him, when he hears her scream. His knees are stiff. They have been locked into the same position since noon. His blue eyes are dry and beginning to redden from staring out into the distance for so long. The soot from the smelter over at Left Hand Mine has somehow made its way over to his position. It stings his eyes, clogs his nostrils. A thin layer of black specks has dusted the exposed skin of his hands and neck. Breylin is very close to murdering his watch partner when her piercing shrieks fill the air around him.

It is not that he holds any particular animosity for Tiero, the Nord man sharing his post that day. On most days, actually, he enjoys his company. But it is the end of his long schedule of watches and a two-day break is ahead of him. He is wearied and hungry. His meager lunch of half a wheel of goat cheese and lukewarm Markarth Mead had his stomach grumbling not an hour after his break. His overseer would have his coin ready to plunk down into his tired hands at the end of his watch. He is counting down the seconds, watching each cloud as it floats along in the darkening sky.

Tiero is constantly chatty. He is a man who loves to hear himself speak and rarely allows silence to stretch on for too long before making some sort of remark. The man can talk about any and everything. Breylin once witnessed him have a full conversation with Vigilance before the dog had scampered off, presumably to get away from Tiero's incessant onslaught of vocalizing. If only Breylin was not duty-bound and could run off like Vigilance. Even Banning's slightly glazed over look and flighty eyes would be preferable to Tiero's current tirade.

"I could be anywhere right now. Infiltrating Stormcloak camps, joining the Companions in Whiterun, destroying bandit strongholds. I could even be Queen Elisif's personal guard by now," he is saying offhandedly out into the waning daylight.

Breylin rolls his eyes at Tiero's suggestion that he could ever hope to be the _personal guard_ to the High Queen of Skyrim.

"But noooo," he drags out, "what do I get?" Breylin mouths along with him, "_Guard duty_."

Breylin has heard this story at least seven times now. Either here on watch or in the Silver-Blood Inn when he finds himself sharing a section of Kleppr's bar with him.

Tiero continues, "All because I took an arr-"

He is cut off. A loud, wailing cry sounds from not too far away. Breylin is sure that the person to whom the scream belongs is coming straight towards the large bronze doors of Markarth. Sound bounces off the emblazoned Dwemer metal and reverberates back into the stable area before Markarth. It is easy to miscalculate where a sound is coming from, how far away its owner is, but Breylin has been a Markarth guard for nearly half his life now. He is an expert at reading and interpreting the sounds around him.

Kibell has already shot off his carriage and is running towards the source of the screaming. Breylin and Tiero share a look. Tiero is, for once, silent as he switches his gaze back and forth between his watch partner and the quickly darkening courtyard before him. His eyes are as wide as saucers as they peer out into the distance. He gulps.

"Anything can come out of The Reach," he finally says, having miraculously found his voice.

Breylin does not respond but thinks silently to himself that Tiero would probably not last ten minutes in the guard of High Queen Elisif. Instead, he takes off in a run after Kibell and shouts for Tiero to stay put. Not like the man had made any moves to follow his comrade into the darkening Reach.

He jumps down the stone stairs in three, wide leaps. His feet hit the well-worn grass with a thud as he tears off towards Kibell, ignoring the stone path that winds up from Salvius' Farm. Instead, he vaults over the low wall and follows the screams. They have not stopped since the first one sounded mere moments ago.

Kibell is only a few short paces away now. His iron dagger remains sheathed at his side and his hands are up – not in surrender, but in the way that Breylin has seen Cedran try to ease his horses when they are spooked by a too closely wandering fox or, on the very rare occasion, a wolf. Breylin does not think that a wolf is to blame for what he sees in front of him.

She is sobbing at this point, in hysterics. Her screams have died down to a cross between choking sobs and gasps that are interrupted by huge gulps of air. Tears stain her face, and the Reach wind combined with the sheer physical exertion she must have released has colored her cheeks with a rosy tint that matches the falling sun behind her.

The woman clutches someone to her chest, cradles her in her arms, and Breylin takes a moment to allow himself to be surprised that the tiny woman before him had the strength to carry another woman in full armor all the way from wherever she had come (it was surely not Salvius' Farm or Kolskeggr Mine, as he would have recognized her). She wears robes mottled with dirt and grime, especially along the bottom hem, and an unmistakable deep crimson is speckled on her collar and up her neck. Her hands are small, the knuckles a bony white as they clutch hard around the woman she presses against her own chest. They too, along with her fingers, are slick with red.

"Ma'am," Breylin tries to appear calm and not act like he just vaulted down several steps and over no less than three walls to get there, "please allow me to carry-"

Her eyes are the color of emeralds when they stare back at him. They are piercing and menacing despite their brightness, and such distrust swirls inside them that he immediately takes a step back. Like a frightened animal, this woman appears to feel cornered, and he cannot let her run away. He wonders very briefly if she will hiss at him. Her heels have dug into the ground and she could easily pivot and run back the way she came. It would be a disadvantage for her to do so, but he has seen smaller, less intelligent animals do far less intuitive things. He is unsure if she has the strength to make it even five more steps, but he is even more sure that he cannot let her go now.

Not when he sees that the body she is holding is no longer breathing.

Vorstag has just sat down by the hearth in Silver-Blood Inn when the entirety of the establishment rushes outside. Frabbi and Kleppr, for once not throwing snide comments at each other, abandon their posts and hastily exit the inn they've run for years now. The broom which the innkeeper had been holding stays upright for a few moments, spins once, twice, then clatters to the ground. The sound bounces around the stone walls of the now empty common area.

Vorstag has never seen the inn clear out like this, and though he is tired from his most recent employment, his curiosity picks his body off the chair he'd eased his weary bones into. He sets his untouched mug of mead down on a nearby table, fully aware that if Cosnach beats him back into the inn, the chances of his mead still being there upon his return are slim to none.

He has just returned from a long journey to and from the College of Winterhold not two hours past. Calcelmo had needed to consult a rare book held only by Urag gro-Shub in the College's Arcanaeum. The Orc was known to not allow books to leave the premises, and as Calcelmo could not stand to be away from his research any longer than a night's rest (even less if he felt he was on the verge of a breakthrough of some sort), he had ordered his nephew Aicantar to travel to Winterhold in order to copy down any and everything inside. The Altmer conjurer's nephew had found Vorstag in his usual place: sitting by the fire of Silver-Blood Inn, feet as close to the flames as he could manage without burning his boots, nursing a mug of mead and waiting for his next opportunity for employment. A bulging coin purse dangling in front of his face was all the persuasion he'd needed to rush off to the frigid village that had almost been swallowed by the sea.

He had not always wanted to be muscle for hire. His true interests lie somewhere else entirely, far from the life of beating bandits to pulps and protecting employers who could care less about his wellbeing so long as he protected theirs. It was a strange and lonely life at times, fighting to defend someone who would not so readily come to his own aid (should he ever find himself in need of helpless maidens, scared Altmerian conjurers, or seedy tradesmen), but he had to make coin somehow. And The Reach was always offering opportunities that called for a protector, however dangerous and bloody those may be.

The journey had lasted over two weeks, and Vorstag is certain that it would take nearly as long for the chill of Winterhold to leave his veins. The cold had all but frozen his blood and turned his bones to stone. How anyone could stand to live so far North in Skyrim is beyond him. Markarth, although it is nestled into the side of the snow-capped Druadach Mountains, at least sees some warmth when the seasons change. The heat during Sun's Height is cocooned within the Dwemer walls and stays trapped until the approaching Hearthfire begins to temper it with its cooler breeze. Vorstag prides himself on being able to survive anywhere, but if he is given a choice, he knows he would never willingly choose to go somewhere that sees perpetual winter.

The weather outside in Markarth is currently balmy. The end of Second Seed is upon them and the approaching heat of Midyear looms not far off in the distance. Hogni Red-Arm's meat stall in the market has only just begun to attract flies and the putrid smell of rot has yet to permeate the small marketplace. The butcher is currently among the throng of citizens crowded around whatever scene had drawn out all of the inn's patrons. Vorstag takes a few tentative steps forward, just enough to leave the cobbled path up to Silver-Blood, but not enough to be too terribly far from his half-forgotten mead in case the spectacle turns out to be not so intriguing after all.

He recognizes Breylin caught up in the bodies of people and spots the guard whose name he vaguely remembers beginning with T. _Thurio? Tharnor? Something like that, maybe_. The guard he can't quite place is standing awkwardly by the looming twin gates of the city, clearly unsure on whether to help Breylin or to go back outside and keep watch. With no one guarding Markarth, even for a few brief moments, there is no telling who or what may seize the opportunity to do something unsavory.

"Please, everyone, _step back_!" Breylin thrusts an arm out and attempts to spread the crowd out as if walking through a field of tall grass and parting the high, unruly stalks.

Vorstag rolls his eyes and sighs. Clearly his assistance is needed. He barely has one foot lifted to begin walking when a Breton woman breaks free from the mass.

He tries to recall the last time he has seen someone – a woman no less – covered in so much blood. It is clotted around the collar of her robes. Deep stains cling to the fabric hanging around her boot covered feet. Specks are dotted across the worn leather that encases her toes. There is a splatter running up the left side of her wind beaten and sun-kissed face. Her hair is the color of warm honey, hanging down her back in a horse's tail secured by a faded leather strip tied at the nape of her neck. Strands have broken free from their binding and stick to the sides of her face. They are crusted with blood, clumped together in deep red.

The woman locks eyes with Vorstag and he stops walking, stands with his back straight, stares right at her. Her eyes are the color of the evergreens he has seen deep in Skyrim during his travels. The kind that are untouched by man and seen by very few, for that matter. Her eyes are wide, terrified emeralds that stare back at him. These eyes are completely lost, frantic, the size of saucers. For a moment he is completely thrown by them, by what he sees when he looks at them, at her.

She clutches a woman to her chest, cradles her within her bloodstained arms. Suddenly, her knees buckle, her legs give out. She collapses hard onto the ground, and Vorstag cannot imagine her knees not developing large bruises on their caps. Instinctively, his legs propel him towards her. He notices Breylin crouching down next to her as well. The warrior for hire sinks to one knee gently, props his arm up on his thigh, and inspects the unconscious woman resting half on the ground and half still in the other woman's arms.

A torrent of words spills out of the Breton. "They would not stop. They would not stop to help and I could not help. I could not…I couldn't help. They _would not_ stop. Why would they not stop? I could not…" her breathing is ragged, and she draws in shuddering breaths, "I couldn't help?"

Her blubbering ends in a question that cracks her voice. It is a sweet voice, small yet smooth. But it is riddled with fear, horror, a total and utter swell of emotion that rolls off her every word in an overwhelming wave.

"How did you get her here? Are you wounded?" Breylin is asking her, probably in vain, as Vorstag reaches out a hand to lift the unconscious woman's cracked breastplate slightly. The armor is cleaved in two allowing him to ease open the half closest to the Breton woman. A startlingly deep wound stares back at him. He has seen wounds like these before. He knows well what these wounds mean.

"Carried." She begins speaking again. "Carried her all the way from…from…I carried her here. I…I…not wounded, no, no, not wounded. I…" Her face breaks into a grimace and fat, wet teardrops well in the corners of her bright eyes. "I _carried__ her_ here."

Vorstag and Breylin look at each other, and the guard gives him a tight-lipped look. It is full of sympathy for the woman in front of them. It is full of a silent plea that Vorstag will tell him the unconscious woman is fine. Vorstag can feel a tightening in his chest. He knows he is about to say what both Breylin and the Breton do not want to hear.

"What is your name?" Breylin's voice is as calm as he can manage.

She is looking down at the other woman and does not answer his question. Instead, with her eyes still drawn downwards, she pleads, "Can you help her? _Please_ can you help her?"

"Traveler," Vorstag addresses her. His voice is like gravel and he has to clear his throat before he speaks any further. He does not often engage others in conversation, does not care to say anything other than what is necessary. The vocal cords nestled in his throat are tight. He does not like being the center of so much attention – the mob of people crowded around them, the setting sun throwing the small market square into colors that remind him of a blazing fire. But, he reasons with himself, he must speak to her.

"Traveler," he says again. When she turns her wide emerald eyes towards him he can almost feel his heart twist painfully in his chest. The tightening is steadily growing worse. How lost those eyes already are now, he thinks. How completely stranded they are about to become.

"Your companion cannot be helped."

The Breton woman's eyes shine with a glossy layer of tears and disbelief. Her eyebrows furrow and her chapped, pink lips open only to close again.

She breathes out a near soundless "_what__?_" and Vorstag finds it in him to speak again, though it feels as if a rock has lodged itself deep within his throat.

"Your companion cannot be helped," he opens her breastplate to show the Breton a motionless, bloodied chest.

"She is dead."

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A/N: I'm very excited to write this story.

I have some stories on the back burner currently, but I am confident inspiration will hit me for those characters again one day. For now, I am incredibly stoked to start this journey with Vorstag, who I think has too few stories about him on this site, and my new leading lady. More will be revealed about her in the coming chapters, but for now I will say I wanted to play with a character like her for a long time. She will be a new adventure for me.

Also, I've looked at this chapter about fifty times now so if you see any errors, please PM me and I'll fix them right away. This is my first time writing in present tense and I am loving the challenge and chance of pace. It's fun to spice up my writing every once in a while.

I've played Skyrim so many times and it is very dear to my heart, along with its characters. Is it silly to say it and they have helped me through some tough times? Maybe. Oh well. I love these fools.

Let me know your thoughts!

Stay tuned xx.


	2. Chapter 2

**Disclaimer: I do not own Skyrim or Bethesda's Elder Scrolls Series. All original content is my own.**

**TW: panic attack**

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The sound that comes out of the Breton woman is inhuman. Vorstag has never heard anything like it. In all the moments of grief he has experienced, all the moments of death and despair he has witnessed, he has never heard a sound like this. It nearly knocks him on his backside as he sits there on one knee in front of her. He feels it steal his breath, cave his chest, constrict his insides. The cry is unlike anything a human can produce, animalistic, raw. It takes him a few moments to gain his composure. The woman begins spitting out words again, but this time, she is enraged.

"_NO_!" Her lips are in a snarl and the force behind her voice is startling. With her face arranged in such a riotous form, she truly does not appear wholly human. "She is _alive_. I carried her here. I _carried_ her here and she was still _breathing_. I did not have any more…I did _not_ have enough for…" she shakes her head and begins to yell louder now, "Where is the jarl's wizard? I _demand_ to speak with him! BRING me the jarl's _WIZARD_!"

Her eyes are frantic, her chest is heaving. She stands and the change in position causes the dead woman's body to flop down against the cobbles. As the Breton looks around, Vorstag notices her hands are shaking, crackling with an energy that comes to life briefly, but fades away just as quick. Like a candle flame that is continuously snuffed out by wet fingertips, or a spark from flint that cannot catch fire, the magika that this woman so clearly possesses cannot be called forth.

"I need to…" She sways where she stands. "I must speak with…" Her body begins to pitch forward, her eyes roll back into her head. Vorstag lunges forward, propels his body using the strength of his bent leg, and catches her in his arms before she can crash to the hard ground. She lies limply against the breastplate of his scaled armor. Frabbi makes her way to his side through the crowd and shakes her head at the woman.

"Poor dear," she clicks her tongue against the roof of her mouth three times, "frazzled beyond belief. Must be exhausted. Better put her up in the back room, Vorstag. The one on the right. Kleppr will go get Faleen and Brother Verulus, won't you, Kleppr?"

Her husband rolls his eyes and mumbles something about always being ordered around by an insufferable wench, but he goes off towards Understone Keep nonetheless. He takes the steps two at a time and soon disappears around the large stone pillars that create the keep's entranceway. Frabbi motions for Vorstag to follow her and the warrior looks down at the small woman in his arms.

"Her companion," he says. "She would not want us to leave her alone, I don't believe."

Breylin clears his throat and then offers, "I will stay with her. Wait 'til someone can take her to the Hall. I'll come back to inform you of where she has been lain."

Vorstag nods and turns to Frabbi. The older woman gives the unconscious Breton one more sympathetic look before turning towards the inn and striding up to the door. The seasoned mercenary lifts her up into his arms easily. Long years of being muscle for hire have molded his body, shaped it from the lanky, lithe form of an ignorant adolescent into that of a world hardened, wind beaten, time tested man. Even without his strength, though, he muses, he would have been able to lift the woman with no large effort. She weighs but a breath more than a feather, or so it seems to Vorstag. He wonders briefly when the last time she'd had a proper meal was. If she was one of those people who seemed to never put on any weight, well, The Reach would swallow her up in one mouthful. Might not even take the time to chew her up before gulping her down.

The Reach was no place for the frail, for the weak. It tested a person, repeatedly, until the trials either won or were adapted to. They never went away. A person just became stronger. Became nearly The Reach themselves. Remote. Resilient. As unmoving as the Druadach Mountains.

Wherever she came from, Vorstag thinks, it had not prepared her for this place.

Few people were ever prepared for The Reach.

When the exhaustion finally clears, she is roused by the din of raucous conversation and the smell of sweet-rolls. The sugary aroma makes her stomach grumble involuntarily, but she finds that her mouth is too dry to respond to the smell. She cannot salivate, can hardly blink. Her entire body feels bone dry, like a cloth that has been left out to dry for too long during Sun's Height. She feels cracked and stiff, sore and broken. Her muscles protest even the slightest of movements and all she has done so far is turn her head slowly to the left. Emerald eyes strain, bleary and red, to focus in on the room around her.

Cold, high stone walls surround her. Great slabs that were stacked one on top of the other encase the room. It is a distant feeling, an empty feeling, the stone walls around her. They are carved here and there with chiseled out images she cannot quite recognize. Dwemer, probably. She is unfamiliar with their kind, their history.

There are a few small wooden buckets near her. One is overturned and droplets of water slide out and _drip, drop_ down onto the cool stone floor. The tear shaped bulbs turn the grey stone an even deeper color, colder even, somehow. There is a woven basket nearby holding what appears to be an unnecessary amount of potatoes. A rolled up rug lies in another corner behind her head. It has collected so much dust that she feels a sneeze well up inside her just by the look of it.

The slab of a bed she has been laid on is strangely more comfortable (if stone can ever be considered comfortable) than she expected. The pillow and blanket smell of stale mead. A lantern flickers on the table to her left. A wax candle barred in by metal framework slowly melts against the burning flame. The table is a harsh stone like the walls, like the bed, like nearly everything around her. She is surprised to find the single desk chair is made of wood.

Her memories have been blissfully absent until she sits up, feels the blood rush around in her body. It fans out from where it had settled, sloshes around in her head, down her limbs, makes her simultaneously cold and warm at the same time. Her hands tingle, her feet feel like they are being pricked with a thousand little sewing needles. Like a floodgate, like a torrent of unrelenting rain, the past two days come rushing back to her and she feels her mouth open by itself. Her lungs expand, contract, expand again. They fill with air. She sucks it all in, greedy, like an animal that has run all day, never stopping, trying to escape an enemy it has never seen but knows is behind it, following hungrily, jaws open and waiting for the first bite. Finally, she has found rest, respite from the unseen enemy. It terrifies her. The silence, the motionlessness, they threaten to pull her heart apart, rip it in two and smash it against the cold, stone walls that surround her, bind her, suffocate her.

Suddenly she cannot breathe. The air that was once sweet and desirous is now a constricting puff of smoke in her lungs. It has turned to ash and she is choking on it. She claws at her throat, at nothing that is there or can be seen by anyone looking at her. She feels it, though, ravaging her from the inside out. The memories. They tear at her like a bear shredding an intruder in her cave. What has she done to deserve this torture? Why do the memories grip her in such a vise? Like a hunter's snare? She is the prey. She is the intruder. The memories will devour her.

She will die in this stone room, inside these stone walls, on this stone bed.

It does not register to her that she is screaming until the impossibly large metal door to her room swings open with a _bang!_ and a tall, beast of a man wearing scaled armor comes running in, his weapon drawn.

She is still screaming, and pressing her hands to her throat at the same time, as she scrambles back onto the stone bed and presses herself back against the hard wall. She attempts to put as much space as possible between herself and the stranger. Her screams die down and she is left gasping for the air that she no longer wants, that thick black smoke trying to poison her body and burn her from the inside out.

"Traveler," his voice is smooth, tempered, and she very briefly marvels that it has come out of such an imposing warrior of a man. "What is it? Who is here? I saw no one come in."

The light of the lantern cast about and against the stones of the room catches in her eyes. It bounces off the solid blocks and bathes the room in a warm glow that does not give off any heat. It is a deceptive warmth, but it plays against her eyes and makes them shine like new spring grass on a sunny morning during Rain's Hand. There are tears there, in her eyes, and they remind him of dewdrops on freshly dampened grass blades.

"Who…who…" She cannot form any words other than that. They are caught in her throat, in the growing pile of ashy dust that has sucked all the moisture from her body, that is slowly running her dry. She is a well that has been forgotten, left to wither and become overgrown, choked by vines and weeds.

Vorstag sees the panic clear as day on her face. Her eyes flit about the room, darting from place to place. He is sure that she is not looking at anything. Something is replaying in her mind. Her hand is at her throat and if he didn't know any better, he would say she looks like she is drowning without being in water.

"I-" He is cut off by Frabbi frantically running into the room.

"Oh, my, my, _my, _Vorstag!" She scolds him like he is a child who has swiped an extra biscuit at dinner, swatting his armored chest with her frail hand. "You'll scare her half to _death_."

She realizes her mistake after it is too late. The woman's emerald eyes grow into discs twice their size at the word _death_ and her mouth prepares to open to launch out what is undoubtedly going to be another monumental shriek.

"No! _No!_ No need for that, miss." Frabbi quickly begins speaking again, fluttering around the small room in a flurry, tidying things that don't mean anything to the woman curled up against the wall and that certainly don't need to be tidied. Vorstag stands like a pillar near the door, equal parts feeling confused and awkward as he looms half in and half out of the room.

"You've cried and shrieked quite enough for your vocal cords for one day. No, no," she repeats herself accompanied by a small shake of her head, "best rest your voice, now. The name's Frabbi," she continues. "My husband Kleppr and I own the inn – The Silverblood Inn, you see. We brought you here after you took a little spill. Do you need anything? Water? Vorstag, go get the miss some water, eh?"

Vorstag turns immediately to leave but takes one last glance at the woman from over his shoulder. She is staring right at him, her eyes unmoving, unwavering, as opposed to moments earlier when they had landed on nearly everything _but_ him.

"You." She croaks out that single word and it stops his feet immediately. He turns back to her slowly, cautiously. He fears if he moves too quickly she will crush herself further into the wall out of fright. He doesn't know why he scares her, doesn't know why she stares at him like she has seen a version of him that has haunted her in some horrific way. He doesn't know why it causes a small knot of upset to form in his stomach.

"You," she says it over again and unfolds her feet from under her. Frabbi stands off to the side, unsure of what to do or what is happening.

The woman drags her body off the stone bed, and at last seems to notice she is still in her bloodied robes. Her hands are shaking as she inspects herself, gently runs her hands up and down her torso, looking for wounds, maybe searching for clues. Clues to what, Vorstag cannot guess. Her breathing becomes ragged once more, labored and pained. Vorstag sees her chest heaving up and down, up and down. It rises and falls quicker and quicker as she looks up at him, stares straight into his eyes again. Panicked and wide her own eyes are as she takes a few more slow, timid steps towards him. She stops when she is less than an arm's length away.

_She is so small_, he thinks. _So small_. The Reach will swallow her. It will. He is sure of it. How it hasn't already is beyond his comprehension. But he knows this place, this world he lives in, and he would bet all of his coin that The Reach would claim her. In one way or another this place would make her its own.

He watches her swallow and it is painful to see. She grimaces. He imagines her throat is like clay that has been baked in the sun for too long, crumbling into dust, from all the screaming, the long run from _wherever_ she had come from. Raw and scratchy, her voice erupts from between her chapped pink lips.

"You…saw her."

Her voice is quiet, barely above a whisper, but he hears her, nods at her without saying a word.

"She is…" her chest keeps moving _up and down, up and down, up and down_, until she continues, "…dead?"

He hears her voice crack, shatter into a thousand tiny shards out into the air of the room. He wonders if it is painful. If it sliced her throat on its way out.

Vorstag cannot bring himself to speak. This woman that has just gone through something he cannot even begin to understand, could not even wager a guess on, has been able to pull sharp words from her shuddering body, and he cannot even get himself to say _one_.

He nods.

In an instant her emerald eyes disappear behind her eyelids and her entire body pitches forward. In an exhale that seems to deflate her limbs and cave in her chest, she falls, gravity intent on crumpling her into a heap, before Vorstag reaches out his arms instinctively to once again catch her. He holds her limp body in his arms for the second time that day and stares down at her, mouth slightly open, eyebrows knit together.

_She is so small_, he thinks again and again and again as he cradles her to his chest.

"Well." Frabbi's voice pierces the air. "_I'll_ go get her some water. Put her on the bed, again, Vorstag. She's been through something. Don't know what it was, but it must've been bad."

Frabbi starts to leave the room but stops when she sees Vorstag staring down at the woman still, his eyes locked onto her face, his own expression screwed up into a sort of confused yet awed look.

"You sure do have a way with women, don't you, hmm? Have them fainting right and left."

He doesn't hear her joke as she exits the room. He can only continue to stare at her, this woman he has never met, knows nothing about, not even a name.

_She is so small_.

His fingers curl around her just a little tighter and it takes him a few more moments to lay her down on the bed again.

_She is so small_.

He looks at the way the stone bed nearly engulfs her figure and he thinks of The Reach. It is colder than the stone that holds her now, harsher too. It comes in like a thief but leaves like a siege. It takes what it wants and rarely gives anything back.

It will swallow her whole.

In that moment he can think of only one thing to say when he finally finds his voice.

"I will not let it."

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A/N: Hope you enjoyed this installment of the story!

Vorstag has some past issues, our female co-protagonist has a mountain of mystery and issues, Frabbi hates her husband, and we still don't know who the dead woman is. What a time!

Let me know what you think! As always, let me know if I missed any errors. Much love.

Stay tuned xx


	3. Chapter 3

**Disclaimer: I do not own Skyrim or Bethesda's Elder Scrolls Series. All original content is my own.**

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Vorstag flexes and un-flexes his hand as he sits in his chair. He has pulled it from its position near the fire and has slid it closer to the Breton woman's room. A constant vigil, he is unmoving from his place at the base of the stone steps. Like a hound who guards the door of its owner, he stands watch. His stare is solid, like how he himself is built, and it dares anyone to pass by without his express permission.

Why does he care so much? He has been asking himself that same question quietly for the past two hours. Why does he wait here? Guard her door like inside is the White-Gold Concordat itself?

He thinks of her eyes, how utterly lost they were as they stared into his own. Those eyes, he has seen them before, a long, long time ago. Her eyes, he thinks, make him stay there, in that chair, outside her door like a permanent fixture, a stalwart sentinel.

An image flashes in his mind, an unwanted phantom appears from his memories. A hand pushing, forcing, straining to claw its way out of ash and rivulets of silver. There is a voice that swirls around in his mind, but he refuses to listen, refuses to hear it. He cannot bear it. Not anymore. He pushes the memory deep down like he always does, prays that it will not weasel its way back up to torment him again.

Her eyes _must_ be why he stays.

He has seen them before. And the familiarity he finds from them awakens something in him that he has tried to forget for many, many years.

* * *

This time she wills herself not to faint.

"You cannot find her if you keep fainting," she chastises herself quietly as she swings her legs over the stone bed and onto the cold floor below. Her boots have been removed by someone and they are nowhere to be found. She reaches her bare toes forward, touches them onto the frayed and faded rug that lies a few inches away. It has clearly been there to add character to the room, take away some of the harshness of the stone, but it falls woefully short of its goal in her opinion.

She misses the blazing fires of Whiterun, the wooden beams everywhere, the high gables and thatched rooves of the homes in the city. Though the room she is currently in has an impressively high ceiling, she cannot help but feel shut in, enclosed.

She misses Whiterun and she misses-

The air that rushes from her lungs forms a gasp that she cannot control. It rushes out in a quick spurt and causes her to grab at her abdomen as if she has just been punched in the gut. She thinks it is low enough to go unnoticed, but somehow that tower of a man from before has heard her and he comes barreling into her room again. As she blinks at him, she wonders if he knows how to knock.

"Are you…" he stares at her eyes for longer than she thinks is appropriate, "alright?"

"My fr-" she corrects herself, squints her eyes, does not trust this man in front of her, "my _companion_. Where is she?"

_Dead_, he wants to tell her, but instead he answers, "With Brother Verulus."

She nods, brings a hand up to swipe a stray hair behind her ear. When she pulls her hand away she notices it is tinged with red, stained a dark crimson still. Vorstag notices her hand begin to shake and he speaks quickly to avert her attention. He has never met a woman as prone to bouts of hysteria as she.

"Frabbi has run a bath for you," he speaks to her softly, in a way of which she did not know such a huge man was capable. It was as if he was calming a caged animal which, in truth, she was acting as if she were.

"She removed as much of the stain as she could but," he gestures at her attire and exposed skin, "couldn't…clean it all. I could take you there, if that would please you."

_"What does it matter if I am pleased?"_ She mumbles to herself. _"They have taken everything already."_

Vorstag stands still and stares at her with that unwavering gaze of his. She knows he has heard her because he had somehow heard her small gasp all the way from _wherever_ he had been previously. He says nothing and she finds herself thankful for his tact. A man who knows when it is appropriate to speak? She has met few of those in her lifetime.

She continues, louder this time, "I would speak with this Brother Verulus now."

The warrior in front of her glances at her grimy and bloodstained attire warily.

"You really should wash first."

The woman rolls her eyes. Big, turbulent pools of green go sailing towards the heavens before leveling themselves on him again. She gives him an unimpressed look.

"Am I a prisoner here or something?"

Frabbi's voice floats into the room as she pushes past Vorstag who moves over only a fraction of an inch to let her pass by. "No, you're not, miss. But you _are_ covered in blood, so it's best if you clean yourself up and make yourself presentable before you go trotting through the city. Come. I'll take you to where I've drawn your bath."

She stands rooted to her spot and Frabbi rolls her eyes slightly.

"I made Kleppr heave those buckets all the way up here from Riverside and if you let that bath go cold, I'll never hear the end of his incessant complaining. If you won't do it for yourself, at least have some pity on a woman trapped in a marriage to a complete clothead."

Vorstag's lips quirk into a small smile. The relationship between Frabbi and Kleppr is a source of never ending entertainment. He watches the Breton woman weigh her (very limited) options. Eventually she relents and follows Frabbi out of the room. She gives Vorstag one last parting glance, her eyes the color of freshly sprouted leaves as they throw him a wary look.

As she slips by him, makes sure not to brush against his imposing figure, she sizes him up. He stands impossibly large, towering over her small frame. She knows she is small, has known it all her life. Her body was not built for combat and it is a fact that she now knows all too well. A warrior she is not, unlike this man whose muscles ripple out from underneath the scales and leather that crisscross his chest. His skin is tanned, puckered with crooked scar lines and puncture marks. As she walks away from him she thinks of his face. Strong. Angular. His forehead seems permanently creased. Underneath thick eyebrows sit two twin pools of blue. His face tapers off into an impressive jawline with a stout chin.

But his scar.

She ignores the stares of the other patrons who ogle her bloodied robes with interest as Frabbi leads her down across the inn. Her mind fixates on the patch of skin below his right eye. A raised swell of skin sits there, swirled around and around like a seared whirlpool. The mark looks angry, old and long scabbed over, but a constant reminder of something painful. It is not a warrior marking that she has seen before – not a purposeful inking of the skin like so many other men have done to signify something or other. No, she shakes her head as Frabbi opens a door and shows her into another high-ceilinged, stone room.

Someone did that to him.

The bath Frabbi has run for her is a simple basin filled with steaming water. Some has sloshed over the side already, no doubt from Kleppr haphazardly dumping the buckets in. There is a fire roaring in a small hearth near the tub. Someone has dragged over a wooden table, the knotted wood rough, not sanded down, and the legs slightly uneven. Several glass bottles stand on it. A small sliver of what she assumes is soap lies on a curved metal dish.

"Thank you," she whispers quietly, distractedly, to Frabbi. Her mind is preoccupied with the scar on the tall man's face.

"Take all the time you need, miss." Frabbi hands her a pile of material she has produced from somewhere. "These are Hroki's, my daughter. You can wear them for now, though I don't know how well they'll fit. They were the only things I could find. Your boots are here, by the door."

Before she leaves the Breton to her bath, the innkeeper turns and stares at her guest for a moment, then sighs.

"Whatever happened out there," Frabbi says, "know that you are in good company here in Markarth."

A confused stare is the woman's reply, so Frabbi continues sadly, shaking her head and sighing.

"People don't often leave The Reach with everything they came in with. The Reach takes what it wants." She shrugs, "We don't get a say, dear."

Frabbi quietly closes the door behind her, leaves the woman stewing in her own thoughts. Before the urge to pass out overtakes her again, she eases herself into the basin after stripping off her bloodied and soiled robes. The water is warm against her skin, and she realizes just how cold she has felt ever since waking up in that stone room. Her muscles are sore from running all the way to Markarth, and even more so because of the events of the past two days. She examines some blisters on her palms before reaching for the soap. A few have burst open and she is just now feeling the stinging pain in her exposed, raw skin.

When she has finished thoroughly washing her skin once, twice, three times, scrubbing her tanned limbs so hard they began to turn red, the water is a murky, disgusting brown. Her hair has been washed clean as well, and it smells better than it has in days now that it is free of the clumps of blood and dirt. She quickly leaves the tub, unwilling to sit in her own filth any longer than necessary, not even for the warmth of the water.

_We don't get a say, dear_.

She thinks of Frabbi's words as she slips on the borrowed barmaid's dress and combs through her honey colored hair with her fingers.

"I _will_ have a say," she declares lowly, resolutely. "And no one can tell me otherwise."

* * *

"You will take me to Brother Verulus now."

The demand startles him in his chair. Vorstag turns and looks behind him at the Breton woman who had, he hates to admit, consumed his thoughts for the better part of the day. He stops short when he sees her. With all the grime and gore removed from her, and wearing fresh clothes, she looks worlds different from the woman who had ran here from _wherever_ carrying a dead woman in her arms. He almost doesn't recognize her.

He swallows, hard, and stands. "You are sure? You know she will be-"

"_Take me there_," her voice is unwavering, and it is clear she will not relent on the command. He nods and turns on his heel, expecting her to follow him. Her tone has bristled him. She hadn't needed to be so rude.

Once they have begun ascending the stairs to the keep, Vorstag finds it in him to speak to her again. His annoyance at her tone has dissipated and he is left with curiosity.

"What is your name, traveler?"

She is silent for a few moments as they climb the winding stone steps, gazing up at the Dwemer masonry all around. After contemplating giving him a false name, she decides against it. She does not trust this man, but her name means nothing here. It would not hurt to be truthful.

"Mira." _Goodness_. _Peace_. Vorstag frowns. There is no room for goodness and peace in The Reach these days. Her name is as fitting to her situation as any name could be. The closest she will get to peace out here in Markarth is her name.

"I am Vorstag," he supplies for her in case she did not remember. Frabbi had only said it twice.

She wants to ask him about his scar, where he got it, who gave it to him, but she knows it is impolite and she is already on thin ice with the man. Her actions and words have not been kind, despite the meaning of her name, but she needed to see Brother Verulus, and she would not have taken 'no' for an answer. Forcefulness in her speech had been necessary. At least, she is under the impression that it had been.

Before she is able to ask him anything, or bring herself to apologize, they arrive at the Hall of the Dead, its dwarven door adjacent to the main doors of the keep. Vorstag pushes open the huge hunk of Dwemer metal for her, allows her to step around him into the dimly lit entryway. Sconces hanging along the walls give off low, flickering light. The air sits heavy with the scent of dust and rot.

She sneaks a glance at Vorstag's scar. In the eerie light of the hall the mark looks angrier than it does underneath the sun's rays. Mira feels it bubbling up in her throat, the need to ask how he got it. She parts her lips and -

"My apologies, but the Hall is closed. I was just coming through to lock this door." A figure appears around one of the corners garbed in the burnt orange and gold robes of a priest of Arkay.

Vorstag makes to speak, but Mira beats him to it. She slips her small body around his much larger frame and comes to stand in between the two men.

"That is unacceptable. I must see my companion who was just brought to you. Where is she?"

Verulus pauses as he looks at the Breton woman. There is a fire within her spirit as well as a deep pool of Magika. He thinks she is certainly not a maiden to be trifled with, despite having such a slight frame. The low light from the lanterns bathes her features in a warm glow, but the shadows cast along her face make her stare seem all the more severe. It is clear she will not back down from this, though he has only been in her presence for all of a few moments.

"There have been…incidents, recently, concerning some of the…bodies."

Mira's light brows furrow, "_Incidents_? Elaborate, priest."

Verulus ignores her tone as he answers her with a tired sigh, "I cannot say at this time, but your companion will stay in our preparation room until the matter is resolved. If you would follow me, please, and, _um_, do try to keep up with me. You should not linger here…"

He pivots on his heel and briskly walks down the hallway of catacombs in a flourish of gold and orange, unwilling to be in the Hall any longer than necessary, it seems. Mira barely spares Vorstag a glance before she takes off after the priest, and the hardened soldier has to roll his eyes. He truly is a guard dog.

The pair is led to a room just outside of the Hall within the great keep of Markarth. The door is nearly invisible, no doubt a product of Dwemer ingenuity. Verulus briefly tells them that they treat all manner of bodies here in the crypts - upstanding citizens and criminals alike. Some of the inhabitants of Markarth do not always agree that a particular body should be embalmed and treated, he informs them. The secrecy is for the protection of the bodies that have yet to be properly prepared for entombment. Both Mira and Vorstag hear him mumble under his breath that it has done no good for the recently plundered and…_devoured_? bodies already laid to rest.

Mira's emerald eyes cut over to Vorstag. She sees that he has become worried over something. He continuously looks back over his shoulder at the now closed door to the Hall of the Dead. She wonders what, or who, could be in there causing him so much distress. Perhaps it is related to how he got that scar…

"Here we are," Brother Verulus alerts them quietly and offers an outstretched hand as an invitation to step forward. There is a stone bier in front of them, laden with cloth, covering the unmistakable shape of a body. Mira steps up slowly, feels her hands begin to tremble, her legs begin to shake.

"This is…her?" Her voice is quiet, small, and it causes Vorstag to take a step towards her. He does not trust her not to faint again.

"Yes," the priest nods, "she has not yet been prepared for her last rites. There have been…setbacks, here at the Hall."

Mira ignores him, instead choosing to reach out towards the drape covering her companion's immobile form. Her breaths are coming out in jagged, painful spurts as she gently lifts the cover off the body's face. Vorstag hears a small gasp escape her throat. It sounds like it had physically hurt her on its way out.

The Breton woman looks down at the face beneath the covers. Brown hair frames the woman's temples and cheeks; a single braid trails over her left ear. Brows that Mira is used to seeing furrowed at her own careless and stupid actions now lie straight above closed eyes. Mira knows those eyes are brown. She remembers, vividly remembers, how much care and strength there was inside of them. This woman will never raise a solitary brow again at something Mira suggests or does.

Mira feels her knees hit the stone floor beneath her. Her hand dives underneath the covers and seeks out the woman's cold, lifeless fingers. She clutches them in her own, feels the emptiness of her touch. Ignores the blisters on her hand that protest being squeezed against the dead woman's skin.

Vorstag hears her begin to cry, sees her shoulders start to heave. He steps up to be next to her, and he cannot help but to look down at the body laid out before them. Briefly, he wonders if Mira has ever had someone close to her die before. It is indeed a profoundly emptying feeling. It's a type of hollowness that is never quite filled again.

His eyes drift down to the drape covering the body's lower half. Immediately, Vorstag turns to Brother Verulus and nods his head harshly one time towards the fallen woman's corpse. The priest steps up, looks where Vorstag is looking, and then casts his eyes downward.

"I did not think they could get in here," he says quietly. Not quietly enough.

Mira looks up, "What are you-?" Then she sees. She sees what they are looking at. Her eyes, burning with the threat of tears, now well with the hot sting of anger. Mira stands quickly, still holding the woman's hand, and glares over her shoulder at Verulus. Her eyes are enraged, and her free hand begins to crackle with the unmistakable sparks of electricity.

"Who did this?" When Verulus is silent she bellows even louder, "Tell me who did this!"

She turns back to the body, looks down at the covers, sees the deep stain of crimson all along the body's right side. When she lifts the sheet fully, there is nothing there. The entire right side of the body has been…eaten.

Vorstag barely has time to catch the woman before she collapses again to the floor with a grief stricken cry. His strong arms hold her up, wrapped underneath her own. He squeezes her to his chest. Her arms reach up to grasp at his own, anywhere she can latch on. She feels his forearms flex underneath her palms as she suddenly lurches forward, her body betraying her, and vomits. Her sick hits the floor beneath her as she lets out another cry, this time of anguish mixed with disgust.

"Who did this!" She shrieks again and then feels the blood rush around in her head. If she were in the right state of mind she may have chastised herself for what she knows is about to happen. How she has made it this far with this weak constitution, well, she cannot truly say. She is certain, however, that it is partly, _mostly_, because of the half-eaten woman lying on the table in front of her. Her stomach heaves again, but there is nothing left to expel. The emptiness inside of her is overwhelming. A faint shadow of black dances around the edges of her vision.

Barely able to wipe her mouth clean before she slumps back into Vorstag's arms, she manages to say one last thing before she loses consciousness for the third time that day.

"I'm so sorry…Lydia."

* * *

A/N: Lots of things happening. Our mystery woman finally has a name, Vorstag's strange scar comes into play, and the dead body is none other than our precious Housecarl Lydia.

It's fun yet challenging to write a character like Mira, who cannot seem to stay awake for more than a few hours and isn't exactly...heroic just yet. Don't worry...that annoying fainting trait will not be exhausted. She has much more to her than a weak constitution.

Let me know what ya'll think. Thank you for reading! If you see any mistakes, please let me know so I can fix them right away. Even seasoned writers' eyes gloss over when editing. Reviews are welcome and appreciated.

Stay tuned xx


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